Ancient artifacts at MAPS Museum getting immortal lease on life with 3D scanning

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — Ancient artifacts on display at the New Port Richey MAPS Museum are getting a new immortal lease on life.

The Museum of Archaeology, Paleontology and Science — or MAPS Museum — is using 3D technology to scan these historical artifacts. It’s creating a digital library and making the collection accessible worldwide. This endeavor is helping protect these rare and fragile pieces for future generations.

“We normally do, probably, around six to ten positions per object,” said Bart Mcleod, research scientist with Global Digital Heritage.

Set up in a backroom of the museum, the camera snaps away.

“Basically, what this does is we use photographs to recreate objects in 3D,” said Mcleod.

Every single artifact on display in the museum is being scanned, creating a 3D digital twin that will then live in a digital database.

“We have a three-year agreement with MAPS, and I think it’s going to take every bit of three years to digitize everything that we can,” Mcleod said. “There’s a huge collection of objects and pretty impressive broad range of things, so it’s pretty exciting to work here.”

Mcleod is part of a two-man team, which includes deputy chief scientist Jeffrey Du Vernay.

“We’re working primarily with different-sized objects,” said Du Vernay. “For the handheld scanner, which I primarily use, we’ll do slightly larger objects. In the photogrammetry, we’ll do more smaller objects typically.”

The handheld scanner Du Vernay uses records the surface of the object he’s scanning, and it also records the color.

“It captures everything within its line of sight,” he said. “And this is what we will have.”

Creating a raw, 3D scan of data. Once that’s done, the final product is put together and uploaded online.

“What we’re really doing is creating a 3D digital library of the objects that we’re scanning,” says Du Vernay. “That has advantages not only for documenting the current state of the preservation of the objects, but also making them available online to researchers, educators, students, who maybe aren’t able to come to the museum.”

It takes hours of work to scan thousands of objects. It’s work that museum director Charles Zidar says makes the art more shareable.

“It’s really important that other individuals and scholars from around the world can access the collections online,” said Zidar. “So it’s been really helpful to have them here.”

Helping pique the interest of a new generation of scientists.

“After seeing them online, maybe they would be more motivated to come and explore what MAPS has to offer,” Du Vernay said.

Preserving these once forgotten artifacts and helping them live forever in the digital realm.

Du Vernay says that in between scanning objects at the MAPS Museum, they will be doing other projects around the world. This project with the MAPS Museum will take three more years to finish.